How Proper Landscape Lighting can Help with Home Safety

Category: Tips for Your Home

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Just as outdoor lights enhance the aesthetic appeal of a house, landscape lighting and home safety are also directly related. Once the sun goes down, your yard can turn into an accident-waiting-to-happen zone. Outdoor injuries occur with greater frequency at night, due to trips and falls, stumbling on stairs, collisions with stationary objects and even falling into pools and other hazards.

When thinking about landscape lighting and home safety, remember to:

Recognize The Hazards

Identify steps, pathways, pools, solid objects like poles, trees and fences and any other zones like areas where outdoor furniture are often present and evaluate lighting options for these hazards.

Wash The Landscape

Creating a low-level “moonlight” effect continuously washes the landscape with low-intensity, energy-efficient lighting to remove shadows. Remember that stark, high-intensity lights often create deep shadows and can be counter-productive from a safety standpoint.

Spotlight Hazards

In addition to constant low-level light, brighter individual spot lights can be utilized to highlight particular zones or hazards. Motion-detecting lights can illuminate areas where foot traffic occurs frequently, such as the approach to the front or side porch or the garage door.

Avoid Light Bombs

Outdoor lights should be positioned and properly focused so that they do not shine directly into eyes of residents. Known as “light bombs,” these fixtures tend to momentarily blind persons walking in the landscape, actually creating a hazard instead of enhancing safety. Attention should be given to the proper aiming of flood lights, entry lights and carriage lights to reduce the light bomb effect.

Make Lighting Age-Appropriate

If the household includes senior citizens, be aware that visual perception changes with age and older people may require more light to safely see stairs, stepping stones and other possible hazards.

The experienced electricians at Apollo Home can install these lights to help ensure a safe outdoor environment around your home: